“My apology needs to be as loud as my accusation.” So spoke D.L. Hughley during the Democratic National Convention that nominated Kamala Harris for president, thus walking back his former false and unresearched comments about Harris’s record as a prosecutor.

D.L., a widely respected comedian and social critic, Black-manned up! His comment prompted me to try to understand why a certain cohort of Black men (and a few women) are anti-Harris because she is – wait for it – a woman.

Why do we believe what we believe anyway? Are our unshakable beliefs derived from family influences, religious teachings, lessons from academia, playground stories, direct experiences, what “they” say?

Partisan politics aside, there are many arguments about contrasting positions on the economy, immigration, Israel, Ukraine, etc., which are worthy of debate. But to dismiss Harris just because she is a woman is small-minded and unworthy of support.

Black women are documented in history as leaders of nations, of cities, in the halls of justice, at educational institutions, in communities, etc., not to mention our own mothers’ influences on us.

Can we begin by listing the African warrior queens? Maybe that’s too far back, remote, for some of you. What about Black women throughout American history?

Let’s start with the abolitionists. Everyone knows about Sojourner Truth’s litany of being as strong as any man, of being equally abused, dismissed, whipped, worked, and put upon, and also giving birth to five children.

How about the anti-lynching crusaders? Ida B. Wells is my heroine, and her legacy is enthroned in the annals of American history.

Maggie L. Walker, extraordinary entrepreneur, started her own bank in Richmond, Virginia, in 1903, creating wealth for a generation of Blacks in that community. Institutions are named for her throughout the area.

Mary McCloud-Bethune founded a college/university, and was an adviser to President Roosevelt.

Shirley Chisolm pioneered the thrust of women and Blacks into modern presidential campaigns, sparking Jesse Jackson and others to run for that highest office. Hillary Clinton was nearly there in 2016, but she faced a wall of misogyny that crossed all racial/ethnic groups.

Thankfully, Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, did not have to rely on the electorate to get her into that position. I shudder to think what might have been her fate had her candidacy been put before the general population. Would Black men have voted for her?

Women have always been in leadership positions, and in the past century, there have been women leaders of many countries:

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia; Golda Meir, Israel; Margaret Thatcher, United Kingdom; Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan; Angela Merkel, Germany; and Indira Ghandi, India, to name a few. They led their countries’ armies, their economies, their societies, etc.

So, why not Kamala Harris now?

Black women have been in the trenches, on the front lines, and in leadership roles since we got here. Yet, upon close examination of our recent history, we find that during the Civil Rights Movement, headed by MLK and other Baptist ministers, women were held to subordinate roles, perhaps based on some Old Testament Bible-based bias. Similar subordination tactics were reported in the more egalitarian Black Panther Party.

Where does this behavior come from? What is the problem?

I’m not satisfied to think that there are just some overriding psychological “mommy issues” driving the misogyny. Or about why some women are jealous of another woman.

There is something deeper.

Black men and women can’t build a nation with any weak links; the backs of all must be equally strong.

And therein I think lies the problem: We are no longer engaged in nation building. No, those days are long gone, and our collective focus is now on a bottom line: wealth, entertainment, the sweet life, etc.

The values and ethos of a western capitalist society have overtaken the Black body politic, and we have become immersed in the sweet nectar of material gains. We have become  “drunk from the wine of the world…”. We forgot.

I’m not denigrating anyone for pursuing their rights to freedom and happiness, the promises of the American dream, but to what end? The wholesale abandonment of principle? The denial of Black collective identity? The dismissal of the importance of the men and women who struggled equally as the backbone of what once was.

I don’t long for a return to the past. I won’t go back. But history informs me.

Black women have always pulled their weight, and then some. Not to be held in esteem because of our gender is to deny our standing as equal. Can this be the cause of modern misogyny? No, we have come too far for that.

I urge you all, Black men, and women, to examine your motives when voting. Yes, vote your pocket-book interests. Yes, vote your individual security interests. Yes, vote for your interests in your personal health and well-being.

But ask yourself: Does having greater access to these interests come only in one kind of gendered person, or rather in a person of principle, integrity, and trustworthiness?

And whatever you decide, please vote, vote, vote! Toniwg1@gmail.com